I believe that's the Glamour hair, yes? I used that in an image sometime ago where I used it for a windblown look. I think that maybe having the hair fan out less in the back would look better. I don't think the top of the hair has morphs, but the bangs should have some that you can adjust.

Here's couple where I used the same hair and played around with the morphs.

ACCHH !!!! No, you had it right the first time !!! Go back to the first image of the girl looking into the sky !! You did a wonderful job on it. It was very nice, very subtle, and powerful. Funny how often people post a really nice image, then start monkeying with it and it goes downhill.

I agree that it might be nice to have a little bit of windblown skirt, but otherwise that first image was beautiful. The lighting was beautiful and emotional, it framed and focused interest on the character, a simple yet very natural pose, just beautiful. But then you went to an unnatural and overdone pose, a lot of clutter in the image (the spear) with a bright tip that draws attention away from the emotion she's displaying, flat lighting, and it becomes just another of 100,000 renders of V4 holding a spear.

Simple is best. Simple lighting, simple composition, simple emotion.

And Mr. Wyeth, I've seen that image of the girl holding the torch about 87 times, and I STILL can't figure it out. There's some cloud-looking stuff behind her, and some kind of wall that doesn't make sense. But I swear I will figure it out some day. And you would make me very happy if you would please composite a decent flame onto that torch. Please. Or just draw something in Photoshop. It will make a world of difference. Oh, and by the way, M-16's (or is it an M-1? I know nothing about guns) are heavy. She doesn't look real strong, and it would be very difficult for her to hold it out like that. Tweak the pose a bit so we can feel the weight of the gun.

And I really like the space girl image, but PLEASE show us some of the texture on the coat instead of just solid black. And after seeing that image a bunch of times, I just realized there is a planet behind her. Make it stand out and be gorgeous and fascinating, with incredible detail and lighting. And give her a slightly more natural pose, and show us the jacket texture, and that could be a really awesome image. The lighting is really cool, and the glow behind her is excellent and gives the image a lot of zing. Or is it zoom?

ACCHH !!!! No, you had it right the first time !!! Go back to the first image of the girl looking into the sky !! You did a wonderful job on it. It was very nice, very subtle, and powerful. Funny how often people post a really nice image, then start monkeying with it and it goes downhill.

I agree that it might be nice to have a little bit of windblown skirt, but otherwise that first image was beautiful. The lighting was beautiful and emotional, it framed and focused interest on the character, a simple yet very natural pose, just beautiful. But then you went to an unnatural and overdone pose, a lot of clutter in the image (the spear) with a bright tip that draws attention away from the emotion she's displaying, flat lighting, and it becomes just another of 100,000 renders of V4 holding a spear.

Simple is best. Simple lighting, simple composition, simple emotion.

And Mr. Wyeth, I've seen that image of the girl holding the torch about 87 times, and I STILL can't figure it out. There's some cloud-looking stuff behind her, and some kind of wall that doesn't make sense. But I swear I will figure it out some day. And you would make me very happy if you would please composite a decent flame onto that torch. Please. Or just draw something in Photoshop. It will make a world of difference. Oh, and by the way, M-16's (or is it an M-1? I know nothing about guns) are heavy. She doesn't look real strong, and it would be very difficult for her to hold it out like that. Tweak the pose a bit so we can feel the weight of the gun.

And I really like the space girl image, but PLEASE show us some of the texture on the coat instead of just solid black. And after seeing that image a bunch of times, I just realized there is a planet behind her. Make it stand out and be gorgeous and fascinating, with incredible detail and lighting. And give her a slightly more natural pose, and show us the jacket texture, and that could be a really awesome image. The lighting is really cool, and the glow behind her is excellent and gives the image a lot of zing. Or is it zoom?

Both images are rather old. The one with the planet the oldest of all. That one was primarily an exercise in placing a planet image in the picture to appear behind the atmosphere. I agree with all of what you said, especially the jacket. I mainly posted them because it's the same conforming hair and I wanted to demonstrate that you could do a more subtle wind-blown look.

ACCHH !!!! No, you had it right the first time !!! Go back to the first image of the girl looking into the sky !! You did a wonderful job on it. It was very nice, very subtle, and powerful. Funny how often people post a really nice image, then start monkeying with it and it goes downhill.

I agree that it might be nice to have a little bit of windblown skirt, but otherwise that first image was beautiful. The lighting was beautiful and emotional, it framed and focused interest on the character, a simple yet very natural pose, just beautiful. But then you went to an unnatural and overdone pose, a lot of clutter in the image (the spear) with a bright tip that draws attention away from the emotion she's displaying, flat lighting, and it becomes just another of 100,000 renders of V4 holding a spear.

Simple is best. Simple lighting, simple composition, simple emotion.

And Mr. Wyeth, I've seen that image of the girl holding the torch about 87 times, and I STILL can't figure it out. There's some cloud-looking stuff behind her, and some kind of wall that doesn't make sense. But I swear I will figure it out some day. And you would make me very happy if you would please composite a decent flame onto that torch. Please. Or just draw something in Photoshop. It will make a world of difference. Oh, and by the way, M-16's (or is it an M-1? I know nothing about guns) are heavy. She doesn't look real strong, and it would be very difficult for her to hold it out like that. Tweak the pose a bit so we can feel the weight of the gun.

And I really like the space girl image, but PLEASE show us some of the texture on the coat instead of just solid black. And after seeing that image a bunch of times, I just realized there is a planet behind her. Make it stand out and be gorgeous and fascinating, with incredible detail and lighting. And give her a slightly more natural pose, and show us the jacket texture, and that could be a really awesome image. The lighting is really cool, and the glow behind her is excellent and gives the image a lot of zing. Or is it zoom?

Didn't touch the lighting. Maybe its the camera position that makes it look unnatural?

Hmmm...not sure why the lighting on the character is different in the two images, but clearly it is. The second has an overall red cast, the first doesn't.

Anyway, by "unnatural" I meant the character's pose. It looks like some silly overacting that you'd see in an old stage opera, where people thought they had to grossly overact with exaggerated motions so people in the back rows could see them. Nobody stands like that.

I'd first think about what emotion you're trying to get across to the viewer. Is she praising, is she totally despondent and seeking guidance and wisdom, is she instilled with power and inspiration, or is she just enjoying a nice evening?

Then when you have that figured, ask yourself how someone would be posed under those conditions. If she's despondent, her body would tend to be a bit limp, like the weight of the world is dragging her down. Her head might be cocked as if asking "how can things possibly be so bad?".

She's on what looks like a peak. You don't have a pose like that when you're on a peak, you tend to steady and balance yourself so you don't fall down a cliff to your death. But she's not balanced, she looks like she's in mid-stride, like she's gonna walk right off the cliff without looking.

It may seem this is all very picky, but it all matters to the viewer. Subconsciously, it matters, and it will look wrong if the picky details aren't considered. some of the classic mistakes made by hobbyists are those of weight and balance. Everything has weight, and is usually in balance. And if you don't depict it that way, an alarm goes off in the viewer's mind. But you don't learn about weight and balance in a Carrara users manual, so many people tend to disregard that kind of stuff.

I guess I didn't notice the change in pose and lighting. It would be nice if the new forum allowed images to be referred to or embedded in quotations or regular replies.

The only thing I was suggesting was using some of the movement morphs to suggest a bit of wind. Subtlety is the key.

Ultimately, it comes down to what you envision for you work, not some random dudes on a forum. If somebody offers a suggestion you can take something from, then great. If not, then that's okay to. The most important thing is to enjoy yourself.

BTW, yet one more reason why I strongly recommend that people first learn the basics by at least reading a book on the basics. One of the most basic basics in animation are the principles used by the masters of animation from Disney, where they exaggerate weight and balance in their cartoons.

An EXTREMELY beneficial exercise for anyone doing any posing or animation is to read those basic principles (squash, stretch, etc.) and play around with making poses that exhibit those principles. By exaggerating you get a feel for the basic concepts, and with that info you can pose your characters far better than 99% of the folks who post images with stiff, unconvincing, and emotionless poses.

For you maybe that's true. But for anyone who wants to produce images for others to enjoy or for commercial purposes, enjoying yourself isn't the goal. It's understanding how your audience perceives things and what they expect, and to some extent how to manipulate their emotions.

Which in many ways is the true distinction between hobbyists and professionals. And many hobbyists can't seem to comprehend that the other half of the world has different, and some might say less self-centered goals. And in no way was that intended to be a criticism, just a fairly factual distinction.

And I guess I'll never quite understand why people think that learning stuff, and learning how to achieve certain goals with their images, and making images that others will enjoy, is somehow less enjoyable....

Kind of to go with what Joe says, I usually add target helpers that I have the feet track. It can help keep on the floor, but more important to me, if I manipulate the hip downwards slightly, it forces the legs/joints to move and compress (for lack of a better word) downwards, and helps give the illusion of weight.

For you maybe that's true. But for anyone who wants to produce images for others to enjoy or for commercial purposes, enjoying yourself isn't the goal. It's understanding how your audience perceives things and what they expect, and to some extent how to manipulate their emotions.

Which in many ways is the true distinction between hobbyists and professionals. And many hobbyists can't seem to comprehend that the other half of the world has different, and some might say less self-centered goals. And in no way was that intended to be a criticism, just a fairly factual distinction.

And I guess I'll never quite understand why people think that learning stuff, and learning how to achieve certain goals with their images, and making images that others will enjoy, is somehow less enjoyable....

And yet, if you hate your job, then don't you risk becoming less productive and engaged in improving you abilities? There is no reason that I see not to enjoy yourself. I've worked on commissions before. Some I have enjoyed, others I have not. The "not" commissions were usually because of personality conflicts, not because of the work.

Even the learning process can be fun if you go into it with the right mindset. If you don't enjoy learning how to do a job, then maybe you've chosen the wrong career.

Of course I never even implied you shouldn't love your job. I've been doing this as a "job" for over 30 years, and there's barely a day that goes by that I don't love it. Tight schedules, even tighter budgets, having to manage people...but I love it. And I love learning more about it every day. You can enjoy it and still learn about it. For me, learning is part of the fun.

Anyway, so we don't get into the same old argument, here's an image I put together to try to show the power of implicit lighting, and using weight and balance in an image. Even a simple striping pattern in the light source implies a lot.

Thanks. The idea of the clinic was the important thing, not the image or what I could make the image say, so I ignored my initial urges for a more dynamic camera angle, or more interesting light and time of day, etc. I think it does its job.

Thanks. The idea of the clinic was the important thing, not the image or what I could make the image say, so I ignored my initial urges for a more dynamic camera angle, or more interesting light and time of day, etc. I think it does its job.

(No photo involved. Models, and three lights.)

You've done a good job. As I said before, I first thought I was looking at a photo with some 3D text. The lighting really sells it for me. Don't change a thing.

First : thank's to 3DAGE for the tea set, and to JoeMamma2000 for his inspiration on making a gummy shader.
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This was just a quicky, and I might continue to develop the concept of "the Great Escape"
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A better background, better table, and more bears...